In celebration of International Mother Language Day 2013, and this year’s thematic focus on mother tongues and books, SIL LEAD is highlighting one reading tool currently in use in local language classrooms in Northern Thailand. Most students in this region begin primary school speaking only Hmong, the local language. Currently, there are about 32,000 Hmong speakers in Thailand. A Thai NGO, Foundation for Applied Linguistics (FAL), has been working with teachers to make reading books. Teachers have found “Big Books” to be particularly helpful in teaching young Hmong students to learn to read. Big Books are large-print, locally authored stories, contextualized and written in the local language that help make classroom reading effective and fun.
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